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I double-click the file.
All of a sudden, the apartment is far too quiet a backdrop for my internal freak-out. I wish the album I’d chosen earlier was longer. At least with the music on, it felt as though there was some life in here.
Finally, the video window opens on a blank scene.
No, not blank. It’s a room with bare, white walls. Only once the masked figure steps into frame and sits down do I notice there was a chair there at all.
He’s wearing a bottle green hoodie with the hood up and one of those masks made famous by the hacker group, Anonymous. The dead eyes and fixed smile creep the hell out of me.
Emily, I love you.
The distorted voice comes so suddenly and so loudly, I jump back against the pillows, kicking the laptop away from me. But it doesn’t stop. I press my hands flat against my ears to drown out the sound. I can still hear it, though. It’s like a looping GIF, playing over and over again.
I want to make a run for it. To call Peter and tell him the psycho knows where I am. But I can’t move. And I can’t look away from the laptop’s screen either. Stinging with hot, fearful tears, my eyes stay glued to the man there. To the hooded figure sitting down, over and over, staring through me with dead, black eyes.
Telling me he loves me.
Chapter Twelve
Peter
Emily still hasn’t said a word.
Not since the phone call. I thought she sounded strange, almost robotic, when she called to tell me to come home, that she needed me.
I dropped everything, radioed my team to haul ass to m
y place, and left the station immediately. By the time I got to my apartment building, Ross and the guys were already inside. The building, that is.
When I got off the elevator, they were standing outside my door. Emily wouldn’t let them in. It took a few minutes of coaxing from me before she eventually opened it.
One look at her, and I knew it was bad.
After the video, though, all that adrenaline that had been driving me balled up together into this heavy mass of guilt that settled right in my chest. I promised I would keep her safe. I should’ve done better.
“Can I get you anything?”
Emily’s curled up on the bed in the hotel room, staring off at nothing. The way she’s lying there, with her hair tied up and her legs pulled in, she looks decades younger than she actually is. Small and terrified. She doesn’t answer me.
I go to check the lock on the door, even though I’ve done so three times already. I cross the floor and tug at the curtains, making sure not even a sliver of what’s outside can make it through. These things I do in an attempt to make me feel safer, so that I can make her feel safe. Because I’ve failed her once and I don’t want it to happen again.
But safety checks are meaningless, of course. None of it matters. This sicko has been one step ahead of us the whole time, and now he’s starting to flaunt it. That’s why I have my guys on patrol outside, on the lookout for that Mazda anywhere close to the hotel.
I go to sit on the edge of the bed at her feet. I’ve never felt more alone in my life. And that’s saying something coming from me, the guy who has spent so many years married to his work. Mr. Independent, who enjoys the emptiness of his apartment and his social calendar.
But now that I’ve found Emily, I can’t imagine not having her in my life. It’s scary as hell, but I know it’s true. I just don’t know if she feels the same way. She’s pulling away from me, I can feel it. It’s subtle, but it’s definitely there. She blames me. I would, too, if I were her.
“We should be safe here for the time being,” I mutter to the plush, beige carpet under my feet. “I have a team downstairs, and another on a 24-hour patrol of the area.”
Silence.
“I could run you a bath?” I’m running on empty, saying anything that pops into my head. “I saw they have candles in there. Might be nice.”
If something doesn’t give soon, I’m calling it a night. Maybe that’s what she needs, some space, and we’ll talk in the morning when she’s had time to process.
“Candles?”
Oh, thank God, she’s finally said something. I turn to face her as she pulls up to sit.
